The Miller Center is a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarship, public policy and political history and strives to apply the lessons of history to the nation’s most pressing contemporary governance challenges. more →

Welcome to the Miller Center

From presidents Carter, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush.

While in command of Fort Washington, William Henry Harrison fell in love with Anna Symmes, the daughter of a prominent Ohio judge. Due to disapproval from Anna’s father, the couple eloped and was married on November 25, 1795. The Harrisons had ten children, but only four lived to see their father in the White House.

More about William Harrison

Because his term in office lasted only thirty-two days, it is likely that William Harrison had next to no foreign policy. The United States had seen no international wars for a quarter century, and the depression at home was absorbing the vast majority of the new President's attention. His inaugural address yields few clues, only vagaries about a firm defense, minimal presidential interference in military affairs, and the right of Americans to make their own way in the world. "It is the part of wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer at least to whom she has entrusted the management of her foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and the command of her armies and navies to a period so short as to prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable agent, not the principal; the servant, not the master . . . Long the defender of my country's rights in the field, I trust that my fellow-citizens will not see in my earnest desire to preserve peace with foreign powers any indication that their rights will ever be sacrificed or the honor of the nation tarnished by any admission on the part of their Chief Magistrate unworthy of their former glory."